Hello Again
by Beechwood0708
Summary: IT Crowd/Hello Friend crossover. Reynholm Industries begins to use Praemus units, and only Moss realises how much danger everyone is in.
1. Return of the Praemus

Hola! Just to clarify, this fic goes by the assumption that Moss silent "Computer Man" role in Graham Linehan's short film "Hello Friend" is Moss when he was younger.

It also promises happynesses for Richmond, for those that requested them :-)

Disclaimer: All belongs to Graham Linehan, he of unendingly fertile imagination.

Hello Again

It began as normally as a day could in the basement of Reynholm Industries. Before attempting to make a pre-slacking pep rant, Jen took a moment to survey Roy, practically dead to outside stimuli, reading a battered-looking comic, and Richmond, talking enthusiastically to Moss, who seemed unusually interested in Richmond's theory on the developmental correlation between goths and hippies.

"Alright-" she began, before the smack of a door caused her to jump back and narrowly avoid a blow to the face from the entering delivery man.

"Sign for this please," he said, evidently too busy to bother with such formalities as greetings.

"What is it?" asked Jen.

"New system, the company's just bought four thousand of them," answered the delivery man, quickly and in monotone.

"But we don't have four thousand people working here-"

"Just sign for it," snapped the man.

Scowling, Jen did so.

"Thank you," said the man, clearly as grateful as Roy had been when Jen had finally gone through with her threat to tidy his desk. He stalked out, leaving the others with a large box.

After regarding it for a second, Jen began to rip open the packaging, unaware that the room was silent. She felt Roy nudge her arm, and followed his finger to Moss, who was sitting stock still, eyes wide, staring at the logo on the box.

"Moss? What's wrong?" Jen asked.

Moss kept on staring. Eventually he managed to let out a whisper. "It's Praemus."

Jen looked at the logo. "Yes," she said, finding the name written beneath. "New Praemus."

"Don't open it," Moss directed, his pupils looking tiny inside the whites of his eyes.

Jen let out an anxious laugh. "Moss, I've got to open it, the whole company's using these."

"Please don't open it," Moss begged, standing up now, his body rigid and straight.

"Moss, what are you-"

"Don't open it!" Moss screamed.

Jen stared at him in shock. Then she turned back to the box, gave the tape one last rip and removed the Praemus system.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her arm, and she was thrown to the floor. Looking up, she saw Moss, brandishing his cricket bat, the one she didn't know why was there, because Moss detested all sports, with Roy and Richmond trying to haul him away from the new equipment, struggling more than Jen would have thought necessary. Jen pulled herself to her feet and aided the others in pulling Moss back onto the sofa and removing his cricket bat, a task made much easier by the fact that he was being pedantically careful not to hit them.

"Moss, what was all that about?" demanded Jen.

"It's evil," Moss replied.

"What- the Praemus system is evil?" repeated Jen.

"Come on, Moss, that's the kind of weird mumbo-jumbo I'd expect Richmond to be coming out with," Roy laughed, then remembered that Richmond was sitting across from him, glaring in the unnerving way that only a goth of Richmond's calibre can pull off.

"If that wasn't true, I'd have you," Richmond muttered.

"I mean it," said Moss, who had lost all of his fury by now, and just sat there, quivering. "I've seen it before. It's evil."

The others stared, lost for words.

"Look, Moss," ventured Roy. "If you'd heard of it before, so would I. This is a new company."

"It's not, Roy, they've been operating for years, on the down-low." Moss sounded, scared now, panicked. He was sitting bolt upright, his hands clutching his knees. "I've seen it before, I've seen what it can do."

He seemed almost ready to cry.

"Moss," said Jen, reaching over and putting her hand on his shoulder. "I think it'd be best if you took the rest of the day off. Have a rest, and call me later to let me know if you'll be in tomorrow, alright."

"No! No, I can't just leave you with it!"

But Roy had already pulled Moss up from the sofa and was leading him towards the door. Moss tried to resist, but he was tired from his outburst and found himself pushed into the lift.

"What are you doing Moss?" Roy cried as the doors closed. "This is like, a new level of mental."

"Please believe me Roy," begged Moss. "Don't set it up. Just leave it. For a bit."

The lift opened at the main entrance, and Roy pushed Moss out, not saying a word.

* * *

Jen turned the Praemus system over in her hands.

Behind her, Richmond giggled. "It looks like an armadillo without any legs," he helpfully pointed out.

Jen opened the manual. "I suppose it connects to the network…" she mused.

Without warning, the Praemus unit flew from her hands, skidded across the room and stuck itself to the tower of Moss' computer.

"That was weird," she said. "Is it meant to do that?"

"I suppose so," answered Richmond. "Look, it's starting up."

They moved round to the monitor and waited for the home screen to come up. "'Every time you complain, an angel cries'," Jen read.

"And you thought I was depressing," commented Richmond.

"Let's try something out," muttered Jen to herself, connecting to the Internet. She browsed through a few pages. "Doesn't seem any different…"

"God knows," said Richmond.

Jen shrugged. "I'll leave it to Roy. He cares."

She wandered back into her office, leaving Richmond to go into Moss' favourites and reorder them, just for a laugh.

* * *

Half an hour or so later Roy returned, alone.

"God that was weird," he said, seemingly to the air around him.

"Was he alright?" Jen asked from her office.

"He kept going on and on about it," Roy answered. "He wouldn't shut up. Kept going on and on about we we're in danger and we shouldn't set it up till he's had a look at it. I wouldn't have got out of there if his mum hadn't come home." He sighed, then smiled and changed tack completely. "So have you had a look at it?"

"Uh, yeah," replied Jen. "It seems to have set up itself."

"What, really?" said Roy. Jen came over and indicated the unit stuck to the side of Moss' computer. "How's it…?"

"It just sort of stuck on," answered Jen.

"Stuck on how?"

"It just… moved over and stuck on," said Jen, feeling more awkward by the second. "Like it… homed to it, or something."

Roy stared at her for a moment. "_Homed_ to it?"

"Yeah…"

Roy leaned in to the unit and fingered the edges. He pulled gently, then a little harder, but it wouldn't give. Shrugging, he turned to the screen and opened the Praemus control panel.

"_You_ set this up?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You set it up _yourself_?"

"Yes."

"You set it up yourself and it _worked_?"

"You tell me."

He sighed audibly. "This is worse than Microsoft. I'm gonna go obsolete."

"Oh, don't say that…" Jen called as Roy stalked off to his desk and buried his face in a comic. Wondering if his sympathetic Aunt Irma symptoms were kicking in early this month, she left him to it.


	2. And So It Begins

Hey, sorry for the lateness. It seems my block was in a more serious state than I thought. Got over it now tho, I'm very sure of that.

In other news, Ayoade is king. I've been wathing Darkplace and Nathan Barley a lot lately.

So, a longish one for ya. Enjoyzz.

* * *

Moss' mother called the office just before five to let Jen know that Moss wouldn't be coming in the next day. From what Jen could hear in the background, Moss didn't seem too happy about it.

He was in the day after that though, and he entered with a wary, accusing glance at the Praemus system, but said nothing. He sat at his desk, visibly uncomfortable with having the unit so close, and tried to get on with something without speaking to anyone.

"Is everything alright Moss?" Jen asked him quietly.

"Oh, yes, everything's fine and dandy, dandy as Larry, Larry Hagman, J.R., who I believe led a fine and dandy life, until he got shot…"

His words faded to a small, incessant buzzing in Jen's head and she walked away, thinking that he would be back to normal, or rather, back to Moss, in a few days.

But after a few days, Jen was just as concerned. True, Moss didn't seem quite as hung up about the Praemus system as he had been, but Jen suspected that this was more to do with the fact that Moss had become better at hiding his mistrust than him actually getting used to it. Which must mean he was more paranoid, if anything.

And then Roy's work, what little of it could be said to be done, started to suffer. Initially, Jen was unconcerned, but when she began to notice comics lying unread, lingerie catalogues still in their plastic wrapping and containers of cold fast food left over from several days before, she started to get worried.

Roy stormed in after lunch one afternoon pinching the bridge of his nose, cursing as he tripped over one of Moss' gutted frames of salvaged hardware and unceremoniously kicking his desk.

"Headache?" Jen asked, briefly looking up from the latest 'Love and Rockets'.

"Yeah, it's been on and off for days," Roy answered, now seeming much more weary and less defensive than his usual self. "You know, uhh, migraines?"

"Yes."

"Do they just start, or do you have to trigger them?"

"I don't think they just start randomly," Jen answered. "You should go and see a doctor."

Two days later, she found Roy with his face buried in his arms. "Did you go to the doctor's?" she asked.

"Yeah, he said there was nothing wrong with me," Roy answered, not bothering to lift his head, and almost seeming to wince through his words.

"Weird," replied Jen, and, unable to think of anything else to say, she left.

* * *

"Hi Jen, it's Roy. Look, I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it in today. It's this headache. Migraine, whatever. It really hurts. I can't… I can't think. Weird dreams. I'm doped up on painkillers. Won't be any use of I come in. Okay, yeah, bye."

Jen was a believer in the concept of Sod's Law. Whatever she did to forget it, or try to make sure that it never bothered her again, it always came back into her life somehow, fault of her own or no, to bite her on the arse. And it just happened to be the day that Roy called in sick that the IT department had its first call for help in several weeks.

* * *

Moss had been finding the atmosphere in the basement quite oppressive lately. Even if Roy had been there, Moss doubted he would have been able to lighten the mood. Richmond was shutting himself away and only came out to silently make copious amounts of black coffee or eat sugar straight from the little packets, and he had never seen Jen so stressed since she first arrived, so adding his problems to her own would probably be tantamount to suicide. With that in mind, Moss was glad to get away and go up to ninth to fix a constant screen-freeze problem for someone called Cath.

He went up, figured out what the problem was in no time, and got stuck in. It was fixed within twenty minutes. Smiling, he returned to the basement.

"We've had another one," Jen called as he entered. "On twelfth. Random shut-downs."

This one was a little more tricky, but Moss enjoyed the challenge. He very rarely felt stretched by his job, so even when he was faced with something only slightly tricky he still enjoyed the feeling of satisfaction when he solved someone's problems. And Kristian, who had called, was unusually thankful.

And this was not to be the last challenge in Moss' day. That afternoon, he was called on to fix a blue screen of death on third, and when he returned he was told that there had been two more calls in his absence, one about a failed Internet connection, which didn't take long to fix, and one about the loss of some of the accounting files, which took him until the office closed. Moss left work that day feeling more fulfilled than he had in a long time, but he decided not to mention it to Jen or Richmond. He thought it might make them feel a little bitter.

It was almost enough to get him to forget about the Praemus units.

* * *

The calls continued for the next two days. Fortunately, Roy was back by then, and he and Moss managed to get over thirty people's problems solved between them on the first day. Roy as well as Moss left work smiling that day, and Jen also seemed a lot more relaxed. Even Richmond came out of hiding when Roy ordered a pizza to be delivered to the office, and though he couldn't tell whether Richmond was enjoying their company or just trying to mooch some substantial food after living largely off sugar packets for the last week, it made Moss feel a lot better.

The next day though, Moss realised Roy was working a lot slower than he was, and once or twice even found himself coming back to correct mistakes Roy had made. He decided not to mention it though, as Roy didn't seem himself again and probably wouldn't appreciate more problems being brought to his attention.

Because of the colossal amount of jobs they had been called on to do, Roy and Moss took their lunch brakes separately. Moss let Roy have his first, thinking it might help him feel better, and managed to sort out a few crashes on seventh before coming down to the basement. He found Roy flat out on the sofa, out like a light. Wishing he didn't have to, he leant down and gently shook Roy's shoulder.

"Sorry," he said as Roy's eyes slowly opened.

"S'okay," Roy groaned. He sat up gingerly, like he was aching, and pressed his palm to his forehead. "I don't get it. I was fine yesterday."

"Maybe it's work-related," suggested Moss. "You should have the week off."

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" Roy joked, but Moss couldn't help noticing the grimace concealed behind it.

"Yes," answered Moss.

Roy gave a low, short laugh, completely devoid of any mirth, that was almost painful to listen to. Then he got up and left the basement.

"See you in an hour, yeah," Moss called after him.

* * *

Even though they had managed to get almost as much work done as the day before, Roy's obvious pain, as well as Jen and Richmond's quiet worry prevented Moss from feeling uplifted as he left work that day. But what he didn't realise as he left didn't involve Roy at all; no one realised that it was Richmond they needed to be worried about.

* * *

Richmond had elected not to tell anyone how he was feeling. As he tended to be fairly quiet around the office anyway, he figured that they probably wouldn't notice, and even if he did seem amiss, surely his anxiety over Roy's wellbeing would be more apparent.

But this wasn't the dominant emotion going through Richmond's mind as his co-workers left and he ordered the Chinese takeaway to get him through the night shift.

He was scared.

He had felt uneasy around the office for a few days now, and it hadn't taken him long to realise his unease was caused by the Praemus unit. He had briefly considered confiding his discomfort in Moss, but seeing how much happier Moss seemed to be feeling, he had decided not to in case it turned Moss back into the paranoid wreck he had been when the unit first arrived.

Besides which, an inanimate chunk of armadillo-shaped metal was a silly thing to be scared of.

But then, he did have something of a gift for interpreting omens.

But also, there was the chance his fear was just deflected emotion being projected out of Moss and into him. He was fairly sure that was possible.

Richmond sat at Roy's desk, swivelling in the chair slightly, his eyes repeatedly darting back to the unit attached to Moss' computer, until a nervous looking delivery man arrived, doing a double take as he walked through into the basement office. Getting up, and becoming surprised to notice that in his nervous brooding he had forgotten to remove his floor-length cape and red-eye contact lenses now that there was no one around to see them, he paid the delivery man, increasingly conscious that if a stranger could enter and become so afraid of the atmosphere in the room so quickly, something must really be wrong.

Out of a habit he had picked up since the Praemus unit arrived, he took his takeaway into his room and locked the red door, drawing both bolts across as well, just in case.

He settled down on the bed he had brought in there and dug in, grateful for fatty fried foods after what seemed like an endless diet of coffee and sugar he had been getting lately. He mused on what he might do when he was finished, because watching the lights on that machine was quite frankly dull beyond all belief, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the machine didn't actually do anything.

His fear of leaving his room made the night shift a lot less bearable. He liked to go out into the rest of the office and stalk around on the ceiling, dropping on things and pretending he was the villain in a Hammer Horror film, but in the confined space of his room there was no thrill in that whatsoever. He had a laptop, but working in IT when you really don't know that much about it causes random browsing of the Internet to lose all its appeal. He had his books, but he had just finished 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and he needed to buy some new ones. And there was always music or TV, but… he couldn't quite explain why, but he didn't want to make a noise with the Praemus unit outside. He knew it was silly, because the machine obviously couldn't hear him, but nonetheless he was still nervous about making a noise with it so close.

Noise.

What was that noise?

Richmond put aside his empty takeaway container and moved closer to the door. Pressing his ear to it, he could hear a sort of… slurping. A long, regular, repeated slurping sound, like someone drinking a Slush Puppy. Needless to say, he was confused.

He peered through the crack in the door. Nothing. There was nothing out of the ordinary there. Two desks, two computers, Moss' collection of hardware, some comics and magazines, the closed door to Jen's office. He could even just see the edge of the Praemus unit, attached to Moss computer, as it always was.

The slurping sound stopped.

There was a hollow, metallic crash.

The Praemus unit was on the floor.

Richmond pushed himself away from the door, afraid that the thing would see him against the light from the crack. He listened. There was a sort of scuffling, sort of gliding sound coming from the other side of the door. It was getting closer. It stopped.

Silence.

It was listening.

_Crash._

Shit! It was hitting the door, trying to get in.

_Crash._

_Crash._

That thing was just a few inches from him.

Heart thumping fit to burst and breathing quick and shallow, Richmond crept as quietly as he could away from the door, crawling along the floor, to afraid to risk getting up, in case it heard him or saw him somehow.

_Crash._

Don't make a sound. Don't make a sound.

_Crash._

Don't make a sound, don't make a sound, don't make a sound.

_Crash._

Don't make a sound don't make a sound don't make a sound don't make a sound don't make a sound

_Crash._

Don'tmakeasounddon'tmakeasound

_Crash._

_Crash._

_Crash._

Then silence.

Had it gone?

He sat there, against the far wall, almost panting, trying not to breathe audibly but unable to hear anything but his own pulse pounding in his ears.

He waited.

Silence.

How long had he waited? Hours? The thing must have gotten bored and gone. He hadn't heard it for however long.

Warily, he shifted his weight and crawled forwards to the door. He pressed his ear to the wall and listened more carefully before he moved to the crack and peered through.

Nothing.

The Praemus unit was gone though.

Shaking, he stood up. He knew he had to get out. He had to run while it was quiet, while it wasn't there.

He pulled the bolts back and unlocked the door with trembling hands, wincing at every muted thump of metal, which sounded like a heavy crash in the oppressive silence. He stepped out, glancing nervously around him, checking it wasn't there. He checked the ceiling, in case it was waiting for him up there, playing his own joke on him. It was nowhere to be seen.

He crept out of the office, eyes flicking around madly, checking for unseen Praemus assailants. Not trusting the lift to get him upstairs safely, he scurried into the gloom of the staircase. It must have been the darkness that caused it, even though he was usually perfectly calm and comfortable in the dark, but he panicked. He ran.

Coming up to the ground floor, he ran past offices and workstations, all with their doors open, all with the tiny red lights of Praemus units staring out at him from the shadows, watching him run, plotting his death.

Seeing them come closer and closer with every door he passed, he carried on running. They were coming closer to the doors. Closer.

He slammed into the wall on his left, catching sight of one of the machines clamped to the opposite wall. He stumbled slightly, but recovered himself and ran on.

Lights on the ceiling. Lights on the walls.

He came to reception, and the green glow of a fire escape sign filled him with relief. He sprinted for it, crashing into the glass and forcing his way through into the cold night air. He knew he was safe, but he was desperate to put as much space between him and those demonic machines, so he just kept on running blindly through the streets of London.


	3. All Systems Down

Another update for you, my lovelies (I am very grateful to the few of you who read this), this time promising some terrible occurences all round, but also Jen's caring side, Richmond's talent for interior decorating, pissed-off Moss, mateyness and even some cuddling.

Hope you like :-)

* * *

Jen was just about to say hi to Moss when her mobile rang. She briefly considered ignoring it. However odd and incomprehensible Moss might be, she'd rather talk to him than Tom any day. She had broken up with him for a reason, after all.

But if he was going to call her again after such a heated argument, it must be for something important. And considering the said argument had become so heated that Jen suspected she might have given Tom a black eye, she doubted it would be to suggest they get back together.

"Hello."

"Hi Jen." Even down the phone, with however much physical distance between them, Tom sounded slightly nervous. Jen felt quite proud. "I was just wondering; is your office goth around?"

"Richmond?" she asked. True, it was better than begging for another chance, but an ex calling her mobile and asking for Richmond was possibly the oddest thing that had happened to her that wasn't totally restricted to the confines of her office. And considering some of the sleazebags Jen went out with, she hoped Richmond was just running a protection racket or something. "I'll just check."

She wandered over to the red door and knocked. There was no response. "Richmond," she called, knocking again. "Richmond?"

She pushed the door open and looked in. it was empty.

"Moss," she called across the office, "have you seen Richmond?"

"No," he replied, looking up briefly from the notes Jen had transcribed the previous day from vague phone calls.

"He's not here," Jen told Tom. "What did you want him for?"

"Oh, it's just…" Tom laughed. "It's just I- I almost hit a goth on the way to work this morning. He skulked off into an alley and didn't come out. I've been watching him for a while, he looks like he's thrown up a bit. Thought I'd better do something to help, but I didn't want to get too close. I thought he might be yours."

"Where is he?" Jen asked. Richmond was almost always out of sight in the mornings, but it wasn't like him to not be there at all. He wasn't used to city life any more, and it was more than likely he'd get into some kind of trouble if he went out on his own.

Tom gave her a street, and se scribbled it down on the back of a takeaway menu. "Thanks," she said, and hung up.

Moss looked up from the notes again. "What's up?"

"Apparently Richmond might be in an alley about a mile away," Jen answered. "I'd better go and find him. God knows what could happen to him out on his own."

"Do you want me to?" Moss offered, reaching for his anorak.

"No, you'd better start on those before we start getting complaints again," Jen replied, grabbing her own coat and Richmond's trenchcoat and running out of the office. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Moss messing with her answering machine, but she dismissed it. She had more important things to worry about.

* * *

"There you go, that should be the last of those files recovered," said Moss, smiling out of habit and moving aside so that Rachel could get back to her computer.

"Thank God!" Rachel all but screamed, putting a hand on each side of the monitor in some kind of bizarre half-embrace.

No need to go so far as to thank God, Moss thought to himself. But it might be nice to spare a thought for the man who got the files back for you.

Now what was his next problem? Oh yes, repeated overheating from the man next to her.

"Hang on," said Rachel as he went to examine the tower. "These aren't the files."

"Are they not?" Moss asked. "I've recovered the ones matching the exact details you gave me. And that was basically all the recoverable files."

"But these aren't the ones I lost," argued Rachel. "It's the same document, but the net profits I was working with were four and a half billion pounds higher."

Moss floundered. He was used to people shouting at him when he had come up to their offices and spent his time doing his best to help them in any and every way he could, goddamnit, but that didn't make the situation any easier to deal with each time it happened.

"Those were all the files I could find," he said calmly. "I've recovered everything."

"Well recover them again!" Rachel barked.

"There's nothing left to recover," Moss tried to explain over Rachel's berating and the persistent questioning of the man with the overheating problem as to when Moss was finally going to assist him with his problems.

"I work with numbers all day; I can remember what I was working with-"

"Look, I haven't been able to use my computer since lunchtime yesterday-"

"-these are not my files, these must be old ones or something-"

"-are you done _yet_, I need to get something finished-"

"- mine must be there somewhere, if you could just do this again-"

"-and this is very important, it's a very big opportunity for me, and I don't want you ruining it for me-"

"-I was waiting all day for you yesterday and now you come and get this wrong-"

"For God's sake, _shut up_!"

The entire accounting department looked up from their collective work or computer problems to stare at Moss, who was flushed and breathing heavily, and had a very hot ear. He took a deep breath and collected himself.

"Right, Rachel, I have done all I can for you. If the numbers are a problem, all I can suggest is you check up with the banks to confirm them. Now, if that's not a problem, I can sort out this gentleman."

Practically burning under the eyes of all those sniggering accountants, Moss dropped to the floor and crawled under the man's desk to check out his cooling system. Rachel got up and stormed out.

* * *

Jen didn't have too much trouble finding the alley Tom had told her about, as she knew the area fairly well. It was on a street largely occupied by clubs and restaurants, and she recognised a few from nights out with the girls or bad dates. She noticed a black heap across the road near some bins, and she crossed over to it. It was indeed Richmond, keeling on the ground with dark rings around his eyes and black makeup streaked down his cheeks. His face had a wan, greenish tinge to it, which looked far more disturbing than his usual sun-deprived pallor. The bins behind him stank of sick.

"What happened to you?" Jen asked gently as she draped the heavy trenchcoat over his shoulders.

Richmond didn't answer. He just pulled the trenchcoat tighter around him and slipped his arms in, looking grateful for once to see the leather monstrosity. He tried to get up, and Jen could see him trembling, and offered her hand.

"Are you okay?" she asked as he shakily got to his feet.

"Yeah," he replied, nodding weakly. His voice was low and hoarse, and he stumbled as he tried to walk. Jen slipped an arm around him to steady him, and he reached his own around her shoulders.

In silence she helped him back to the office. All the way there she could feel him wanting to lean on her, but stopping himself, because he was bigger than her. He kept his head down, obscuring his face from view, and his trenchcoat dwarfed him, making him look about fifteen.

It was almost half an hour before they reached the office. Richmond entered nervously, glancing quickly over at the desks, and Jen swore she had felt his arm tighten around her as they came in. Jen pushed him down onto the sofa and went to make him a cup of tea, thinking he was probably sick of coffee by now.

"What happened?" she asked as he drank it.

He looked over at her, without saying anything, and just shook his head. She could tell that it would take a lot of effort to get him to answer. Was it fear? Or shame?

She decided not to press it.

The phone rang, but Jen was too tired to answer it. As it shrilly persisted, she pulled herself up from the sofa and sloped into her office. She didn't quite get there in time though, and the answering machine kicked in.

Hang on, she thought. This wasn't the message she recorded. Moss had recorded a new one.

"Hello, you've reached IT. If you're hearing this message, then all of our terminally understaffed department are busy with your problems, so leave a message and we'll get back to you, unless you're from accounts, in which case I'm in your bl-umming office, you blind pillock."

Jen winced. And then Sod's Law came to bite her once again, as the voice she least wanted to hear a ranting answer message came through the speaker.

"Shit, I didn't realise it was that bad," said Roy, sounding just as in pain as the last time Jen had seen him. "I'll be in later today, promise."

She tried to call him back to tell him she didn't want him in if he was still suffering, but she couldn't get an answer. She tried his mobile, but each time he left it until she got his answerphone.

But as Jen spent the morning trying to organise calls in order of importance, the time they would take to fix and the time the call came in, so that Moss was free to concentrate on solving the problems themselves, Roy still did not appear.

Moss came down for a late lunch break at three. "Jen," he said, wearily yet with an unmistakeable sense of being very pissed off. "Do you have any cigarettes?"

"No, I don't keep them on me," she replied. "Too much temptation. You could try Richmond's pockets though. I doubt he'd notice." She indicated the sofa, where Richmond was now dead to the world.

And she was faintly shocked when Moss actually did start rooting through Richmond's pockets until he found a half-smoked packet of Marlboros, and then smoked at least half of the contents right there in the office. Judging by this and the rather un-Mosslike language on the answering machine message, he needed his mind taken off everything. "Guitar Hero?" she suggested.

"Nah."

The situation was worse than she thought.

"I'd better get back to the accountants."

"No!" she cried, trying to stop him from leaving. "You haven't finished your break. Don't let them pressure you into cutting it short. Just think how they'd complain if they had to."

"No, I've got to," said Moss. "They've got the company accounts disappearing left, right and centre, they're all going on about values changing, money going missing, all kinds of things." He carried on up the stairs, before turning back and adding, with a hint of pride buried under his frustration; "They need me."

He was out the door before Jen realised he had taken Richmond's cigarettes with him, and she ran after him to get them back. She told herself it was because Richmond deserved to get at least some of his cigarettes back, but in truth she knew that the general stress of the situation and Moss' recent decision to start chain-smoking had given her the urge to have one herself. And making sure she only took one, she slipped the rest back into Richmond's pocket.

She lit it and took a drag, feeling a slight twinge of guilt for stealing cancer-sticks from a sleeping man who'd been lost and bewildered and quite badly ill in an alley just a few hours before. But she was stressed; that counted as an excuse.

Bloody accountants. Always complaining about their computers and their programs and their missing files and…

Changing values?

How did that happen?

Finishing the cigarette, she decided she needed to get out of the office.

* * *

Physically exhausted, mentally more exhausted and nursing a few bruises from a very hacked off man who didn't understand that full system scans were not instantaneous, Moss returned to the basement. Hoping to slip in and out unnoticed, he was thwarted when Jen immediately pounced on him.

"What's going on up in accounts?" she asked. "I've been asking around all day and all I've heard is a vague rumour that somebody called Rachel might be fired."

"The company's bank account's four billion pounds down on what it should be," Moss explained. "It's not a huge loss considering the profits we've been bringing in lately, but it's a heck of a lot to just go missing. So everyone thinks Rachel's doctored the accounting files."

"God, has she?"

"How should I know?"

Jen looked startled and walked away. He really needed to keep his temper in check. Yes, he was stressed and frustrated, but so was she and it wasn't her fault, so he shouldn't be taking it out on her. And he shouldn't be thinking of stealing more or Richmond's cigarettes. He shouldn't have stolen any in the first place. He shouldn't have smoked at all, let alone in a public place of work with the smoking ban being enforced.

He needed to get out of there.

He leant back on the sofa and gazed over at Richmond, who was hanging around the kitchen, not really doing anything, but trying to make it look like he was.

"What's up with you?" he asked.

Richmond looked over and gave him an emotionless smile. "Another night shift," he answered.

"But you always do the night shift," said Moss. "You never don't do the night shift. As far as I know you've only ever left the building twice."

Richmond shrugged, then, after a moment of hesitation, came over to join Moss. "It came after me," he whispered.

"What?" asked Moss.

Richmond indicated the Praemus unit on Roy's computer.

Hang on, _Roy's_ computer…?

"Last night. It came alive and tried to get into my room. Then it went away, and hundreds of them chased me out of the building."

"Stuff the night shift," advised Moss. "Go home."

Shame seemed to make Richmond shrink next to Moss' taller frame, and Moss thought he could see a hint of some foreign colour creeping into the pasty goth's face. "I can't," he said. "I haven't got anywhere else to go."

Moss now observed the face that he was facing a moral crisis. On the one hand, he couldn't leave Richmond alone with a murderous Praemus unit, especially when he was so vulnerable. On the other hand, he also couldn't take Richmond home to meet his mother, especially when he was so vulnerable. The last time his mother had met a goth, it hadn't been a pretty sight. And this was really saying a lot, considering the young lady in question had been modelling for Dark Star at the time.

That left only one choice.

"I'll stay with you."

He watched Richmond's face contort, not without some degree of amusement, with disbelief, then gratitude, then awkwardness, which eventually led to Richmond turning to him and giving him a kind of odd, one-armed hug, which Moss just as awkwardly tried to return.

"Tender moment?" asked Jen, whose face was pink from holding off the giggles. "I'll see you tomorrow."

She left.

Moss and Richmond ordered Indian, and the appearance of a slightly skittish delivery man led Moss to wonder what kind of effect a goth in full makeup hanging around the crappy basement of a closed building in an evening must have on someone living closer to the real world. Oddly, Richmond seemed completely oblivious to his disconcerting aura.

They moved into Richmond's room, both wanting to put a barrier between themselves and the Praemus. It seemed odd now, thinking about it, but it had never occurred to Moss that Richmond might actually be living in that room. It had never even occurred to him that the room was fit to be lived in, but Richmond seemed to live quite comfortably in there. Somehow he had managed to get a bed in there without anyone noticing, and he had covered it in what looked like black satin. He had a small TV at the foot of the bed, resting on a DVD player, which was surrounded by the cases of old movies on DVD, most of which featured Christopher Lee in a starring role. There was a bookshelf next to the bed, filled with classic literature like 'Dracula', 'Frankenstein' and 'The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy', and CDs from bands, the majority of which Moss had never heard of and the rest of which he didn't particularly like. The top of it was populated by candleholders and figurines and other ornaments, most of them depicting dragons or wizards or a gothic-looking fairy, as well as one of those miniature mannequins for keeping jewellery on, wearing a little black ball gown and covered in spare bangles and rings. Hung next to it was a mirror framed by intertwined snakes and surrounded by a string of purple fairy lights. But what really got Moss' attention was the six-foot-tall purple Lego dragon next to the TV. It looked sort of serene but sort of ferocious, but all the time like a lot of carefully arranged bricks that wasn't really alive but looked it if you were far enough away. Moss hadn't been very good with Lego as a child.

"I made that when I was bored one time," said Richmond.

"Call her Hermione," Moss requested.

Richmond shrugged. "Okay."

After scoffing the takeaway, Moss spotted Richmond's alcohol, and realised he hadn't gotten drunk for quite along time. He confessed this to Richmond, and half an hour later he was giggling madly through a head full of distorted logic and leaning on Richmond, who despite the fact he had been drinking absinthe as opposed to Moss' preferred vodka, seemed completely unaffected.

"You're drunk," Richmond stated.

"So are you," Moss insisted. "You're acting."

"I'm good at that," said Richmond.

"You been in any films?"

"Yeah," answered Richmond, reaching over and showing Moss the first DVD his hand landed on. "I'm in this one."

Moss peered at it suspiciously. "That was made in 1956."

"I went back in time," explained Richmond.

Moss snorted. "So you're a time-travelling film star, but you're single and you live in a basement with an obsolete telephone exchange unit and a dragon."

"I was wondering what that was," said Richmond, looking at the machine. "Anyway, you're single too, and you're down here with me, so you're no better."

"Ah," grinned Moss, leaning closer and leering. "But Hermione fancies me."

"Does she?"

"Yeah," sneered Moss. "She's giving me the eye, look at her."

Richmond looked up at Hermione, then turned back to Moss. "She's not _real_," he pointed out.

There was a crash from somewhere near the vicinity of the wall.

"She is," argued Moss. "That was her, banging her tail around to get me to pay more attention."

"That wasn't Hermione," said Richmond. "That was the Praemus coming back."

Moss' back went rigid. "You alright?"

"Yeah, actually," Richmond laughed. "I must have just been freaked out last night. I don't think it can get in."

_SLAM!_

No sooner had he spoken, the door hit the floor, its hinges torn apart completely. Three Praemus units were already in the room, waiting, ominously still, between the bed and the broken door.

"Shit."

The units did nothing. They sat and waited. Moss gazed around. There was no chance of escaping through the tiny window, but Moss wasn't entirely sure they would need to. To his knowledge, Praemus systems weren't equipped with weapons or defence mechanisms or anything like that. And they weren't moving; just sitting there and waiting.

A familiar buzz registered in his head. Finally placing it, he looked down just in time to see two more units with exposed wires at the legs of the bed.

"Move!" he shouted, grabbing Richmond's arm and pulling him off the bed, as an electric current coursed through the metal frame and into the mattress, setting the satin covers alight. In a blind panic, they bolted for the door, leaping over the amassed units and stopping dead in the doorway to the rest of the office.

The office was full of Praemus units, immovable black slabs covering every surface, every floor. A thousand red eyes glaring up at them.

As one, every single machine advanced a foot. Moss turned back, but the five units that had first accosted them had now gathered in the doorway, barring escape back into the room.

"There!" Richmond cried, seizing Moss by the arm and dragging him at lightening speed to one of the large bookcases that he and Roy used to store their collectable crap. In his haste, Richmond slammed face-first into it, but a moment later, before Moss really had a chance to see what had happened, he was on top of it.

"Come on!" Richmond shouted down. Moss looked back. The machines were closer now, and Moss had no idea how Richmond had managed to climb the bookcase. He felt something knock him on the side of the head, and looked up to see Richmond's hands held down to him. He grabbed on and felt gravity try to force him down as Richmond pulled. He stepped up and felt a shelf break beneath him, covering the advancing units in piles of his own miscellany, and he quickly lifted his leg to find the next shelf, almost like running up the bookcase, until he found himself hauled up to the top, and hopefully to safety.

He shifted position next to Richmond and looked down. The units were still. Those tiny, blazing red eyes stared up, constant and watchful, never moving. He knew the units were waiting, but there was nothing he could do. He'd just have to wait too. Wait for morning, or wait for trouble.

* * *

"Sorry, Jen, you know, I really did mean to come in yesterday-"

"You didn't have to. I tried to call you and tell you not to."

"I meant to, but I tried to get up and I felt sick, so I threw up, and next thing I knew I was on the bathroom floor and it was four hours later."

"You blacked out and now you've come back to work?"

Roy and Jen entered the office, Roy looking a little sheepish and Jen looking at Roy like he was the weirdest thing she had ever seen. To be fair, he did come close, but Moss had shown her Nanoweb once and she had never thought about things in the same way since.

Suddenly, Jen stopped, looking upwards. She nudged Roy. "I don't think you're the only one who's going to be giving me that look today."

She pointed up to the top of a bookcase, to where Moss and Richmond were perched, fast asleep, leaning on each other and with their arms around each other, looking as close to anything like they had spent the night snuggling.

Jen started to convulse with held-in laughter, but when she looked over and saw Roy doing the same, she couldn't help but let herself go, and the two of them exploded in a fit of wild giggles. Almost falling backwards as she guffawed, she saw the sound of her laughter wake up the sleeping men on the bookcase, both of whom practically jumped out of each others' arms, Moss going very red and Richmond trying to strategically arrange his hair around his face so that no one could see he was anything but his usual ashen white.

"I'd better get to work," Moss asserted, hopping down from the bookcase.

Richmond made a noise of agreement and did the same.

Both moved like shy teenagers who had been caught behind the bike sheds as Richmond retreated through the red door and Moss went to check which jobs were the day's priorities.

* * *

When Roy went for his lunch, he could feel a dull ache that was quite a relief from the pneumatic-drill searing that had been going through his head the day before. As he took his lunch, a foot-long he had picked up from Subway on the way in after having foreseen that he would not want to have to go outside on his break, Jen came out from her office, smiling wearily, but with almost no trace of tension on her face.

"You alright?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied. "Managed to sort out that static problem on twenty-second. Takes the mind off the…" He tapped his forehead.

"Have you still got it?" asked Jen, her eyes widening slightly.

"Yeah, but it's not too bad today," answered Roy. "I think it went away earlier, but then I thought about it having gone away and it came back."

"You were probably just ignoring it."

"Yeah, I think so."

They sighed, both at the same time.

"Roy, could you possibly do me a favour?" Jen asked.

"Sure, what?"

Jen smiled gratefully. "I know you're on your break, but would you mind just manning the phones for me if they ring?" she requested. "There haven't been as many calls lately, and I've just finished sorting all the jobs into some kind of priority order, so I was just going to have a little sleep."

Roy nodded. "That's fine."

"It's just if they ring; I mean, I've got a feeling they won't-"

"Jen, it's fine."

He smiled at her, and she smiled back. "Thanks," she said, as she went back into her office.

Roy finished his sandwich, disappointed when it didn't really fill the hole in his appetite. He briefly considered going out for a KFC or something anyway, but he reasoned that by the time he had got there, paid for it and brought it back, his break would be over and he would have to wait until work finished, and then he'd be eating more cold food.

With a little more time to go, he idly flicked through one of Jen's old 'Love and Rockets', enjoying it more than he remembered, and feeling somewhat triumphant that he had introduced Jen to the comic in the first place.

He checked his watch and found that it was two o' clock already, and Moss would be waiting to be relieved. He crossed the room to Jen's office and knocked. When he got no response, he knocked a little louder, and then went in anyway.

"Oh shit!" he cried.

Hearing his outburst, Jen opened her eyes, and then gasped in horror as she saw the two nodes attached to her own head. "Oh my god!"

"Okay, okay," Roy waffled as he looked around the room. The nodes were attached to the Praemus system, which had somehow manoeuvred itself onto the office wall near the door. What the hell?

But Jen; he needed to help Jen. "Right, I'm going to cut them," he announced, deciding that this would probably be safer than trying to pull the nodes out. His eyes skimmed the desk. "Do you have any scissors?"

"Top drawer," answered Jen, her voice higher than normal.

He ran to the other side of the desk, opened the drawer and found what he was looking for. He leant over Jen and snipped through one wire, then the other. The wires fell to the ground, and a moment later the nodes in Jen's head followed them. The Praemus system just stayed motionless, stuck onto the wall.

"What was it doing?" Roy gasped.

"Life insurance," was all Jen could say. "I need some life insurance."

* * *

"I've seen all of this before," Moss told them after work, when he and Roy returned to the basement together and Jen, who had spent most of the afternoon holed up with Richmond in his room, had managed to coax the now extremely heavily made-up goth out into the open.

"And you didn't think to tell us?" complained Roy.

"I did at first," Moss reminded him, that quirky, assured "Mossitude" shining through. "My old friend, John Ward," he went on, "he had problems with his computer shutting down, screen freeze, static electricity, money disappearing from the bank, the unit moving around when no one was looking, attaching itself to his head to advertise services… His life even started gong wrong; his wife left him and everything. It's all the same."

"What caused it?" asked Jen.

Moss' gaze fell to the floor. Jen was sure she could see tears forming in his eyes.

"I don't know," he admitted, his voice quiet. "I didn't look at it. I didn't even go near it. I was scared of it."

A few tears started to roll down his cheeks, and the group as a whole seemed to move closer.

"It's okay," said Jen soothingly, putting a hand on his. "There's reason to be scared of that thing."

"It didn't even do anything to me," Moss sobbed, catching Jen's fingers between his own and grinding them without realising it. "I just saw it and I couldn't get any closer."

"So what happened next?" Jen asked, trying not to let her pain show. "How did it end?"

Moss sniffed. "John had a heart attack."

There was a collective gasp, then a moment of silence.

"Should we… destroy it then?" Roy asked eventually.

They looked around at each other. Richmond nodded.

"Did he do anything to trigger the heart attack?" Jen asked.

"I don't know," Moss answered, still crying softly.

The other three exchanged glances. After a moment, Jen got up, retrieved Moss' cricket bat, held it out to her side and swung. It made a satisfying smash, and she smiled as she raised the bat again.

At least until Richmond's frantic cry of "Oh god!" jerked her back to reality. She spun round and saw that Roy had fallen to the floor and blood was gushing from his nose. Richmond was kneeling next to him, obviously at a loss as to what to do, and Moss had gone pale and rigid, his eyes wide open and his hands covering his mouth.

She joined Richmond on the other side of Roy's body. She looked him over and tried to think, but it was no use; she was just as clueless as Richmond was. "Call an ambulance," she shouted up to Moss, before seeing sense. "No, wait, wait," she stammered. "I'll call the ambulance."

She left Richmond with Roy and ran for the nearest phone. Moss didn't move an inch.

* * *

The ambulance came quickly and took Roy away. Jen, as the most stable, was allowed to stay with him until he reached hospital, but then he was whisked away to intensive care. Moss and Richmond arrived in a taxi a little while later, but the three of them were ushered into a waiting room, to wait to hear whether Roy lived or died. 


	4. Watch them Burn

Sorry it took so long, but the final chapter is here. Thanks for reading. IT Crowd forever!

* * *

As they waited Jen fell asleep, leaning on him. Later, Richmond followed suit, his head on Jen's shoulder. But he just sat there, taking the weight of both of them, waiting, awake, alert, waiting for news. 

Jen woke up and sighed, but didn't move because Richmond was still asleep on her. Moss looked down to her, but didn't say anything. Jen squeezed his arm. They sat in silence.

Richmond woke up, groaning, and shuffled over to the vending machine. He passed around chocolate that tasted too sweet to Moss. Inappropriately sweet. It should have tasted like ash. Then it would be respecting the situation.

A tired male nurse came in quietly. "Roy's friends?" he asked.

Moss nodded. "That's us."

"He's had a mild aneurism," the nurse explained, "but he's in a stable condition and we don't think there'll be any lasting effects."

"Can we see him?" asked Moss.

"I'm afraid not," the nurse replied. "But you're welcome to come during visiting hours this afternoon."

"We've been waiting here all night!" Moss protested. "All night! Just so we could see him when he's okay!"

"He is unconscious," the nurse reasoned.

"I don't care if he's unconscious, please let us see him," begged Moss.

"We have been really worried," said Jen, coming up and standing beside him. "Just a few minutes, that's all we want."

They argued and argued, Moss getting more and more desperate as Jen and Richmond joined him in the argument. Eventually, when Richmond whispered something in the nurse's ear that made him retch, he let them through.

"Ten minutes," he warned them.

Roy looked somewhere in between living and dead. He lay, not moving, surrounded by the sterile whiteness of the bed and the room. It made his flesh, which had developed a pallor that Richmond would have been proud of, look a sick shade of faded yellow. He was full of tubes pumping him full of strange substances that none of them could identify, and his eyes were closed and his face neutral.

As soon as he saw him, Moss fell to his knees at the side of the bed and cried, whispering things that Jen and Richmond couldn't hear over his sobs and his quiet voice. These were for Roy's ears only.

As his quiet words faded to anguished tears, Jen came to his still head and put her hand on one cold cheek, in too much shock even to cry, and just stared, eyes wide and mouth open. Richmond hovered nervously in the background, unsure how to act, and after a while tentatively stepped forward and took one of Roy's hands, his face almost a perfect mirror of Jen's.

No one spoke any more.

When the nurse returned to tell them their ten minutes were up, after fifteen, out of sympathy, though there was nothing to say, every thought still felt unsaid, trapped inside their disconnected minds, straining to get out. But there was no release for them.

They filed out of the room silently and back into the waiting room, and then through to the car park outside. They stood in silence, still unable to speak.

"What now?" Jen asked eventually, her voice tiny and weak.

No one answered for a moment.

"I need to get a taxi back," said Richmond.

Jen looked at her watch. "It's almost eight," she said. "We might as well come with you."

They called a taxi and it arrived a few minutes later. The journey passed in still, tired silence, and just as silently they returned to the basement of Reynholm Industries.

Once there, with nothing to do until their colleagues upstairs arrived at nine, they milled around the office, Moss moving around bits of board games and miscellany, then moving them back, then back again, and Richmond making coffee and not bothering to drink it. Jen just stood and stared.

"This bloody thing," she whispered, standing over the Praemus unit, still stuck so inconspicuously to Roy's computer. It bore no dent or any other evidence of the battering Jen had given it the day before. She reached towards it to try and yank it off.

"Don't touch it!" cried Moss. "They overheat. John showed me how he got the Praemus symbol burned into the palm of his hand."

Jen held her hand a few inches over the symbol. She could feel heat radiating from it. She moved her hand away and stood up.

"I need to go for a wander," said Richmond, disappearing out of the office. Jen and Moss watched him go. Neither had ever actually seen him in the act of exiting the basement before.

Moss sighed and slumped himself on the sofa. Jen joined him. They waited, lost in thought.

* * *

As he did when he walked the building at night, Richmond unconsciously found himself in the executive offices. He still knew the area like the back of his hand, could remember the windings of the corridors, every inch of his old office, who used to work where. Most of the names on the doors had changed now. He wondered where everyone had gone.

Richmond wondered about the man was who occupied his old office now. "Gareth Brownridge". Who was he? What was he like? Richmond supposed he didn't care.

He came to Denholm's old office. It was his other haunt. He had seen a lot of things happen in that room. Some of them he was proud of, others he wasn't. He had been in there once since Douglas Reynholm moved in, in the middle of the night, feeling curious. He had looked at Douglas' picture, and seen no similarity at all between father and son. He still wondered about their personalities and characters. Were they so different in that sense too? From what he had heard Jen saying, he presumed not.

He paused outside the office door. He could hear a sound from within. Not a sinister Praemus-like sound, but a human one; the sound of weeping.

Slowly he inched the door open and peeked through.

There was Douglas, leaning on the desk, his back to him, head down and shaking slightly with suppressed tears. According to half-heard conversations, Douglas couldn't run a business anywhere near so well as his father. And after so short a time it was failing. It was enough to make any new boss cry.

He was so much smaller than his father; only about as tall as Richmond himself. It made Richmond look at him differently. He was different enough from Denholm to pity, and therefore to comfort. Richmond entered the room slowly and quietly and approached him. He came up at one side, as close as he could get to his front without the desk getting in the way. Unable to think of any words of consolation, he just reached his arms round and embraced the crying man. Douglas turned to look at him.

Richmond was left somewhat dejected when he screamed and ran away.

* * *

Moss had crossed back over the room and returned to the Praemus unit. He held his hand over the hot symbol as Jen had done, feeling the scorching heat emanating from it. He picked up a scrap of paper from Roy's desk and held it to the symbol, and watched as it set alight and was consumed by flame. He smiled.

"What are you doing?" Jen asked.

"This is how it's done," Moss answered, a grin on his face that was not far from deranged. "We've got to destroy them all."

"But- what happened to Roy, it'll happen again."

Moss could hear a slight hint of panic in Jen's voice. He smiled a little wider, and held another piece of paper to the searing symbol, watching it ignite.

"It won't hurt us if it destroys itself."

"What about John Ward?"

Moss looked at her, his face set and resolute. "John lived," he said. He smiled, now looking happy and quite mad. "John Ward lived! He lived!"

He left the burning paper on the floor near the unit, adding more and more to it until he had a fair-sized fire going.

"Save what you need," he warned Jen, collecting up Roy's comic collection and a few items from his own collection of hardware, depositing them in supermarket bags and old chicken buckets and pushing them out of the window.

Together, he and Jen collected anything flammable they could find; letters, magazines, invoices, stationary, and threw it into the fire. The fire grew.

Richmond returned, and seemed to understand without explanation. He disappeared into his room and returned with an armful of his books and dumped them all into the fire. The fire spread.

They began to pull apart bookcases and desks to feed the fire. The computers and collectables were consumed. The red door was smashed to pieces and thrown in to burn. By now the fire was beginning to spread of its own accord and was ready to consume the whole office.

"We'd better get out now," Jen panted, her lungs tired from effort and smoke inhalation.

She ran for the fire escape as the flames spread and fell out into the cold of the outdoors. She staggered to a halt and Moss ran into her, almost knocking her down. Richmond was nowhere to be seen.

The worst momentarily flashing through her mind, Jen returned to the open fire exit and looked through. "Richmond!" she called. "Richmond!" But the room was empty.

She felt Moss' hand on her arm and allowed him to pull her away. Silent once more, the two of them sat on the ground wand watched the building.

For a while nothing happened.

Then smoke began to pour through ground floor windows. As the smoke climbed higher, flames began to appear on the lower floors. They ascended, higher and higher, until almost the entire building was devoured.

Down a fire escape from one of the top floors came a black shadow with another man in tow.

"Oh my god," gasped Jen as Richmond helped Douglas down to the ground. "I had no idea he was in there."

Jen came forward to support Douglas, who trembled and tried to right himself, as Richmond fell to his knees coughing. Jen helped Douglas to sit down, and the four of them watched the building burn.

As people began to appear, Jen nudged Richmond and Moss, and they left the silent, staring Douglas for someone else to find, not wanting to be seen there.

Jen took Moss and Richmond back to her home, as Richmond was now homeless and Moss didn't want to be faced with his mother right now. Their mutual shock and grief, and the act of having burned down a building overcame any trepidation she had had before about letting them in to that most personal of places.

Trying to lighten the mood, she turned on the television, but in the end the three of them all wound up sleeping on the sofa again.

* * *

Moss was awoken by a vibration on his thigh. Something was wrong with the muscle! He had muscle problems! What if it was the first symptom of some debilitating muscle disease?

No, wait, it was just his phone.

Groggily, he sat up and answered it.

"Hello," he grunted.

The voice introduced herself as a receptionist from the hospital. As Moss listened to what she had to say, his face lit up, and he grinned, and even managed to laugh.

"Thank you, bye."

A little too roughly in his excitement, Moss prodded and shoved at Jen. "Wake up!" he told her. "Wake up!" She awoke, moaning, and Moss leaned over her to shake Richmond. "Richmond! Wake up!"

"What is it?" Jen asked blearily.

"It's Roy! They say he's made a miracle recovery. They can't explain it, but he's fine! They're just going to keep him in till tomorrow to make sure, but then he's free to go!"

They both stared at him in disbelief for a moment, until Jen suddenly sprang on him and choked him in a big, tight hug.

* * *

They went to see Roy as soon as visiting hours began, and he practically screamed to see them.

"Thank God, this is the most boring place ever!" he cried. "I don't know if I can stand even another day."

He had gathered that something had happened to do with the Praemus unit, but however hard he tried, the others refused to tell him what, just in case someone overheard.

It was at that point that the news came on the television, and Roy was faced with the image of Reynholm Industries burned to the ground. He looked at them with an eyebrow raised, and they all responded with sheepish, admitting smiles.

On the TV Douglas was raving, which the newsreader blamed on shock at losing the business. "I thought the spirit of death had come for me!" he was shouting. "But then the building caught fire and it came back and rescued me!"

They stayed, laughing over news stories and whatever else crossed their minds, until several nurses turned up to throw them out.

Moss briefly wondered as he made his way home what he would do now that he had no job and no means of supporting himself, but he pushed it out of his mind, because everything was fine and dandy in the here-and-now.


End file.
